As Malia Wollan reported in The Times, the students – philosophically opposed to the consideration of race, gender or ethnicity in college admissions decisions – were motivated by a state Senate bill awaiting the signature of Gov. Jerry Brown. The bill, one small step from being law, would permit public universities in California to adopt affirmative action policies.

In response, the young Republicans held an event Tuesday, cheekily called “The Increase Diversity Bake Sale,” in which baked goods were sold at different costs for different people. The group’s intention was to highlight with sarcasm what they believed to be an unfair double standard.

The sale’s Facebook page advertised: “We will be considering race, gender, ethnicity, national/geographic origin and other relevant factors to ensure the equitable distribution of baked goods to our diverse student body.”
And its price listings went on to specify how much a pastry would cost a particular person:

White/Caucasian: $2.00

Asian/Asian American: $1.50

Latino/Hispanic: $1.00

Black/African American: $0.75

Native American: $0.25

$0.25 Off For All Women

Shawn Lewis, president of the Berkeley College Republicans, told CNN that the group sold out of its 300 cupcakes on Tuesday, and he rationalized the provocative price differentials:

“The purpose of the pricing structure is to cause people to disagree with this kind of preferential treatment. We want people to say no race is above another race, or no race is below another one. Why put one over the other? Why rank them that way?”

The sale has raised an outcry from the Berkeley student community and others across the country, prompting discussion not only of affirmative action but, more broadly, of free speech.

Do readers of The Choice support the right to stage such protests on college campuses? Does the example of a differently priced cupcake make you think differently about affirmative action in college admissions? Share your opinion in the comment box below.

Of course they have the right to do this, but only as a form of protest (setting up an actual business in this way is obviously wrong). I disagree with their opinions, but that doesn’t give me the right to stop them from looking foolish.

I’m a liberal democrat, and I think what these kids are doing is great. I’m also appalled that other schools would shut other protests like this down. (In reality, in terms of college admissions, it would be men getting the .25 off).

Affirmative action should be used to bolster people with economic hardships. Skin color should have nothing to do with it.

I have some disbelief that it is even a question whether this is a valid expression of free speech – and shock it was disallowed at two other schools.

It’s a clever and civil way to express a (relatively simplistic) view on a topical campus and political policy. Who is really saying they should not be allowed to do this? Regardless of whether it is constitutionally protected free speech, don’t we want college students weighing in on such issues of the day?

If others disagree they should civilly express their opposing beliefs.

It’s sad, but I doubt I’m not alone in thinking this would be viewed far differently if they were expressing more liberal views. And sad if folks only support free speech if it is consistent with their existing views.

This is pretty mild activism, compared to what Berkeley has seen over the years, isn’t it?

It’s solidly protected speech in that its entire point is to provoke thought and make a political point. Kudos to Berkeley for being consistent in their standards. I wouldn’t say it’s original, though–didn’t I just see John Stossel doing that bit on his show? http://youtu.be/kn48t-X0uNU

One thing, though: didn’t they get the pricing wrong? Shouldn’t Asians be paying more due to their collective academic accomplishments?

This is absurd. It neglects the privileges white students have received for so long and assumes that students of color and women are less qualified than white males. I hate to see such discriminatory and heartless actions proliferate through a learning space.

Why not invite Tim Wise and open a dialogue about the issue? No, instead let’s reaffirm our own beliefs by creating a phony narrowminded bake sale to prove how “wrong” affirmative action supposedly is. It’s pathetic.

The logical flaw in such “demonstrations” is the equation of a cupcake with a college education. Nevertheless, it is a long-established tradition for college students to stage foolish, poorly-thought-out demonstrations, and so long as they are peaceful, I fully support their right to do so.

Does affirmative action have a place on college campuses? I don’t think it’s wrong to say that, sure, sometimes diversity needs a boost at our nation’s intellectual stomping grounds, even if that boost is bureaucratic rather than meritocratic. Pre-college education still finds itself mired in the muck of inequality; the next-rung of the ladder to success isn’t always within reach for many would-be students.

In the current state of our economy, it doesn’t look like it’s going to get much better for students of any race.

Not everyone will agree, and there should be disagreement. Just because I tend to side support affirmative action doesn’t mean I am closed to debate. Addressing the other side of the coin is important in improving any institution.

Which is why as a recent graduate of UC Berkeley, I applaud the administration for allowing the bakesale to proceed untethered. To stifle activism—even if perceived as inflammatory—is akin to silencing the decades of commitment to free speech which has earned the campus its special place in history. Having attended the campus at the impetus of the state’s now status quo budget crisis, I witnessed first-hand the administration’s openness to student criticism and protest.

And more often than not, I stood behind those students.

But I distance myself from those who first cried “racism” and transformed the bakesale from a medicore attempt at political satire into a nationwide debate on race at a time where student of all stripes are struggling with the changing landscape of higher education in America.

There was nothing “racist” about the bakesale. Was it exclusionary? No. Was it mean-spirited? Maybe. Did it get people interested in the senate bill? Absolutely.

Lest we forget, the bakesale was a response to the student government- sponsored phone bank whereby student could call the Governor Brown and voice their support for the bill at the heart of the fracas.

Were those in opposition to the event shouting “fascist!” at the callers? No. But lest we forget, a phone bank is a kind of protest. It’s a proactive means to ends which clearly establishes itself on a specific side of a debate.

Does the ASUC-sponsored phone bank represent the views of the entire student population? Absolutely not. Does the bake sale–hosted by an ASUC-sponsored club–represent the views of the entire student population? Again, and emphatic “no.”

I don’t think one can place concessions on any type of protest, so long as no one is hurt in the process. And I think the BCR was right to apologize to anyone that felt offended. They’re message, while a little uncouth and off-kilter—and wholly unoriginal—did what the phone bank couldn’t do: it got people interested in the debate.

That’s the kind of protest that should always have a place on college campuses.

The white kids at the bake sale table betray such a tribal, identity-based way of thinking on this issue in the way they display their notional price structure. I think it’s pretty well understood that absent some kind of informal quota system, the entire freshman class of Berkeley and UCLA, for example, would be at least 90% Asian. Clearly, and yet again, those types of Republicans given to harboring racial resentments forget about their privilege, and proceed with this victimized mentality, no matter how divorced from reality. “At Berkeley, we’re the minority…” an imagined and unpleasant conservative might say.

I wholeheartedly support the students’ right to have a demonstration like that. What worries me is that Bucknell and W&M shut their down the other bake sales. I thought college was supposed to be about the freedom of speech and the freedom of ideas.

Upon further reflection, if you take away affirmative action totally, Asians will probably take most of the freshman slots in the top colleges. The (mostly caucasian) College Republicans are self-delusional if they think that they aren’t among the beneficiaries under affirmative action.

The bake sale pricing in the photo at UC Berkeley is misleading. Women are actually at a disadvantage in the college admissions process (see recent article in this blog, “Colleges Increasingly Look for Applicants Who Can Pay Full Price”). A Princeton sociology professor showed Asian applicants must score 50 points higher than White applicants on the SAT to be accepted in elite NE schools at the same level as Whites (Reported in NYTimes article about a year ago).
If the Young Republicans were really interested in protesting a lack of meritocracy in the college admissions process, they would be advocating for acceptance of more Asians, women, and the economically disadvantaged of every group. Instead, this protest appears to be a “Gone with the Wind” attitude that we should go back to the days when many minorities and women were not allowed in many colleges and those without the means could not afford it.

I don’t think it matters what particular price is given to each race. The point is to show different prices for different races. Charging a different fee based on race is wrong. It makes no difference what the fee or race is. All people are equal. So the tuition should be the same for all races and genders. The fee should also be the same for all income levels. I am not against assistance or programs to help lower income families put their kids through school, but at the school level, the tuition should be equal.
Equal rights, equal pay, equal treatment, equal tuition.

Affirmative action means quotas. For years, the asian american community has been hit with quotas limiting the number of asians who can attend top schools. When california lifed the quotas, asian attendance at Berkley skyrocketed. Why should a poor asian american student be at a disadvantage against a middle class black student when applying to college? The only people who can rationalize this are liberals and social engineers.

While I support their right to stage such a protest, and I’m even sympathetic to the view that affirmative action contributes to society’s sense that race is a meaningful quality, their protest is idiotic.

As #17 correctly notes, the white folk who pushed to end affirmative action got an ironic taste of their own medicine after they succeeded.